THE RISE OF THE EMPIRE
OF THE LIVING DEAD
PART 1:
AN UNLIKELY HERO
PROLOGUE:
A TROUBLED KING
King Brommonor Ursanathorn woke in a fit of coughing. He clutched his chest where a trail of blood and spittle covered his exquisite white silk nightshirt. He looked around the room frantically searching for the terrors from his nightmares. It was always the same dream that haunted him.
'The Masters of the Dead Empire Arise Once More to Consume the Living World and All Within It.'
The nightmares remained vague but they were becoming clearer. Each year that passed brought the End Times of Man one step closer or so he was to believe if his Dream Visions were to be believed. The Royal Seers, The Arch Mages, The Grand High Priests, White Witches, Wandering Holy Hermits and a whole other large gathering of so called wise men and women tell him his noble family heritage is blessed or cursed with the ability to see the future.
He his a hunted man according to his visions. One close to him will be his undoing. The visions have taken their toll on the old king. A long lived bloodline of past kings who mostly lived into old age which for the enchanted kings of the old times was anything up to two hundred years. He had lived only eighty five years and if the past were any indication of his bloodline he should have been a man in his early middle age with an appearance matching that of past long lived kings and queens. But he was almost skeletal in his appearance and looked like he had recently risen from the dead.
The last ten years of visions had taken a heavy toll on his health and well-being. His fourth wife Queen Ferelda was a young woman of only twenty five years. She had given him his eighth and ninth sons Arangar and Dennador and his sixth daughter Evira. If the rumours were true it was believed she no longer had anything to do with the king. Some whispered of how much she had despised the old man and longed for young noblemen to steal her away from the clutches of the king.
The king's immediate thought was to cry for help but knew there was nothing anyone could do for him. Hundreds had tried. The wisest in the land had offered all kinds of cures, magic and suggestions and none had worked. He believed himself cursed. How could he possibly live another hundred years degenerating into a raving madman. There was already treacherous words being whispered in the Royal Court.
Long had his sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles plotted to remove him from the throne. But he would silence them all. He vowed to unmask the traitors and make them pay for their scheming. At least the Church of the Twelve Divines remained loyal and promised it would pass with time. But if the visions were true his time was quickly running out.
His children from his third and fourth marriage were still not ready for the demands of the Royal Court with its deadly intrigue. He had sent them to the heart of the Empire thousands of miles to the west to be made ready for their rise to power. Their safety depended on the whims of the Emperor. But he remained a loyal friend even though they had grown distant over the last ten years.
His older children now aged between thirty and sixty were all ambitious and had little love for their father and king. The treatment of his first three wives had guaranteed their long standing hatred of the man. The kingdom was bitterly divided with many factions ready to contest the throne should the king die.
PROLOGUE:
A MAN OF QUESTIONABL MORALS
Sir Knight Arangrad Lavaraeux of the Holy Order of the Golden Pegasus had known better days. He had once been lord of the Lavaraeux estate, its lands and people. He was the last of his bloodline. His brothers, uncles, cousins, nephews had all died during the Battles of the Lands of Widows' Sorrow.
At that time he was one of the king's personal bodyguards and his duty to his king came before his family. While they went to war in the name of their king it fell to his Holy Knightly Order to protect the king.
The series of battles were the greatest loss of life the kingdom had ever endured. Over five hundred thousand men perished on those Fields of the Dead and Damned at the hands of the armies of the Vampire Kings hordes of living dead.
That had been over twenty years ago when he was a young man of twenty three years of age. A whole generation of the Noble Houses was lost to the Vampire King's forces. The ancient King Vasnar Ragnorhoth had been brought back from the eternal infinite depths of the Demonic Abyss by the Demon God of the Undead Uthanathoth.
He was promised an Empire of the Living Dead. All he had to do was conquer the entire World of Thorengard. Now those who once fought for the Kingdom of Thessidor are part of the Vampire King's vast hordes. In the conquered lands a diabolical undead royal court holds sway over the terrified and dwindling human citizens. Vampire Dukes, Counts, Barons and Lords mock the lands of the living with noble houses from past millennia that have risen from the grave.
Thessidor prepares once more for war. The dream visions of King Brommonor have proven true so far. At least in their vague prophesies. The distant Empire of Vennemmarra sends troops by the tens of thousands to bolster its eastern most kingdom.
Every city in the kingdom is under martial law at the demand of the king. Every able bodied man is required to join the peasant militia. Mercenaries are flooding into the kingdom in search of employment and the promise of plunder of unimaginable wealth in the Lands of the Dead. The neighbouring Kingdom of Kasselamar spared the ravages of the undead hordes twenty years ago prepares to stand by its neighbour and ally.
Arangrad had long since fallen below the ideals and virtues of his Knightly Order. His name had been stricken from the books and he was exiled in shame after an affair with a Duke's youngest daughter, Nalandria Rosemorren. For the last ten years he had wandered the Lands of Widows' Sorrow.
This was the no-man's-land. The vast swathe of chaotic wartorn borderlands between the Empire's eastern most kingdom and the Land's of the Dead. A bloody mire of endless war. Lands that were hostile and stretched over two thousand miles wide and three thousand miles from the northern mountains to the southern deserts. Hundreds of small border kingdoms, grand duchies, baronies, shires, and counties left over from fallen empires are all that remains between the empires of the living and the vast Lands of the Dead.
He had become a mercenary, a sell-sword, a bounty hunter, a monster slayer among other things. A tomb robber and raider. Though he had men still with him who served long after he was stripped of his title and lands. Most had died or moved on to other things. His current band of hired thugs were mercenaries of dubious reputation. They were just what these lands required. A man of virtue would long ago have fallen to despair and left for more pleasant places.
Like the battle scarred lands he now frequented. He carried the scars of a man who had fought too many battles. He wore the lines on his face of a man older than his years. His forty fifth birthday had come and gone a week ago with little celebration other than several bottles of ale in the local whorehouse. That was all that passed for a good time these days.
Tomorrow his band of mercenaries joined hundreds of other such roguish groups in the coming war between two small border kingdoms. He thought of home. Over two thousand miles to the west. This was the edge of the civilized world of humans on the this vast continent. The Kingdom of Palomere had invaded its southern neighbour the Kingdom of Larasel.
They were small insignificant kingdoms no more than a hundred miles each from north to south and the same from east to west. Their populations numbered no more than a million civilians each. Their armies however were large and professional due to years of warfare and bitter rivalry. Life for so many nations in these borderlands meant the endless conquests continued unabated.
Whole kingdoms disappeared over night to be replaced by their hostile neighbours. Rivalries were often long lasting bitter feuds between minor noble families over the slightest remark or gesture.
Of the four hundred men and women who made up the Scarlet Ravagers Mercenary Company he knew only a few in person. They tended not to last more than a battle or two. But they kept joining regardless. Young warriors with nowhere else to go. His personal band numbered no more than his thirty man unit. He was a master sergeant of a mounted light lancer platoon. Second in command to a platoon lieutenant of which there were ten in the whole company. The other hundred were mounted scouts and archers.
In years long past he had fought in tournaments as one of the king's champions. Noble ladies had sought his attention and favour. He had undertaken quests that were now legendary tales in the old kingdom. He had controlled a large force of men at arms, professional militia and knights. But those days seemed like a distant memory now. All for a forbidden romance that was doomed to end badly.
Arangrad woke from a drunken slumber in a cold sweat that sent shivers throughout his freezing naked body. He felt the whore Eralise next to him on the rickety old bed with its sweat soaked sheets crumpled up at his feet. She snored loudly like an old man.
The stench of her sweat along with his own made him want to vomit. Maybe it was the twelve tankards of strong ale that he had drunk in no more than two hours before falling into bed with the harlot and spending the whole night locked in a lustful embrace.
He jumped up suddenly as if reminded of something and staggered to an old metal bucket full of piss and then proceeded to violently vomit up the whole contents of his long suffering stomach. The mess of fluids contained blood and left him wandering if his old ailment was getting worse.
If it was, how much longer did he have left to live. He had seen men die of lesser maladies. He wasn't too sure how he felt about it. Sometimes he left himself amazed that he had lasted so long.
The troops had taken to calling him Arangrad the Eternal Rock because of his numerous clashes with near death. And his will to resist to his last breath. Would his next battle be his last. Perhaps it would come tomorrow.
Tomorrow was a good day to die.